Falling in Love
by the stargate time traveller
Summary: Kirk fell in love with the Enterprise. That's why he joined Starfleet. But what was he thinking, especially when he saw the first Enterprise and then Enterprise-A?
1. Chapter 1

I don't own Star Trek. Please let me know what you think.

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Falling in Love.

When he looked back years later during his career, James T. Kirk would always remember two things about the night Christopher Pike came to him at that bar at Riverside, Iowa.

The first was he had joined Starfleet not because he particularly wanted to, but the second thing was he had fallen in love.

While that woman he would later learn during the mess with Nero was called Nyota Uhura had been beautiful, attracting him to her within moments of meeting her, and had possessed a fiery spunk, it wouldn't be until years later when the pair of them had begun to work out their differences and became friends, Kirk had fallen in love with a totally different kind of lady.

The Starship _Enterprise. _

Kirk wasn't a fool. He had known the construction of one of the first batch of Constitution-class starships was under construction just on his literal doorstep. While he hadn't completely taken Pike's dare seriously at first, he had been intrigued by it. Kirk had never really resisted a dare before in his life.

And yet he had been intrigued at the same time mostly because the dare had hidden a challenge which had appealed to Kirk because he had been directionless for a long time, and he was trying hard to find something meaningful and inspiring to do with his life. Understandably Kirk didn't want to be bored, and he was bored.

He had been bored in Iowa for years.

His whole life had been directionless and meaningless for a long time; the only thing he had to keep him going was booze and girls. That was it. What a life to lead.

Of course, he had tried to do something about it more than once. While they had worked, like he had known they would, at the same time the successes quickly soured, and he was back to square one.

Kirk had never really given much thought to joining Starfleet. While he had nothing against the organisation's dedication to the protection and the safety of the United Federation of Planets, he had three grievances against the organisation.

His father had been a Starfleet officer. And he had died in that initial battle with the insane Romulan Nero, who had been lashing out against everyone because he had warped ideas of who was to blame for the loss of his wife and unborn child.

He sympathised to a point with Nero since the pair of them had suffered loss. The loss of his loved ones was terrible, and yet that didn't excuse the fact he had gone mad, destroying not just the _Kelvin, _but he had lashed out against the Klingons and the Federation, wiping out millions of lives, especially when he destroyed Vulcan with the red-matter weapon.

While Kirk understood how his father died, he would never forget that with the loss of George Kirk, he had never really had a stable childhood. While Frank had been a bastard at times, he had really shone through and was a decent man underneath his hard shell at times.

The second grievance he felt towards Starfleet was the fact his own mother preferred being in space than being a good parent. Kirk wasn't sure if it was because he resembled his deceased father more than she would like or even wish, but nowadays Kirk didn't really care. He had never really had a good relationship with his mother.

It stemmed from the time she had been off-planet, and he had been sent to Tarsus IV. It had happened shortly after he had driven his father's antique car over that cliff, and Frank had had enough of him. Although Kirk had enjoyed being with his mother's family on the planet, especially since they treated him like a human being and not some burden the way Frank had done inadvertently which had driven his brother away, the hell he'd endured there would never be forgotten.

Which led to his third grievance. While he would be forever grateful towards Starfleet for their relief efforts to the colony, he would never forgive them for allowing the satellite system around the solar system the colony was in to fail to the point where that rock carrying those spores were allowed to fall into Tarsus IV's atmosphere, destroying all the crops and forcing Kodos into forcing that massacre on the colony. Kirk had narrowly survived that whole mess. In the end, both Starfleet and Frank had redeemed themselves, although he would never forget the fact Starfleet had been spending all of its capital on other things instead of taking the time to update its colony's defence systems.

Even still, Kirk had no interest in joining the organisation. While he had grown older, all thoughts of the organisation were pushed out of Kirk's mind; he had no real responsibility, going from one job to the next, sleeping around with women. Why would he want to join?

But as he captained the Federation Flagship, going from zero to heroic captain, and after he'd had time to think about what he had learnt from his association with Ambassador Spock about the version of him who'd led a different life, a life with a stable loving family instead of living rough, Kirk realised that he'd been seeking direction his whole life.

But that night in Riverside had pointed it to him.

Kirk would never know what had forced him to travel to the shipyard and watch the construction of the _Enterprise. _The ship was far from being one hundred per cent finished, but the moment he had seen the ship in its glowing glory - courtesy of the work lights being used by the planetside engineers working on the construction project - and he took in the primary and secondary hulls of the ship, joined by the neck section, and the organically shaped warp nacelles, which was the traditional shape of a starship since the days of Cochrane's prototype warp-ship _Phoenix _Kirk was hooked.

The moment he saw the _Enterprise _under construction, Kirk knew he needed to join Starfleet. The dare from Pike had been a further incentive, of course, but the main reason had been because he had fallen in love.


	2. Chapter 2

Falling in Love.

When he was older and would later look back on the whole mess with Krall which had led to the destruction of the original _Enterprise, _he would remember all the good times and the bad times he had had when he had first seen her in the Starfleet construction yard which had been the primary reason for him going through with Pike's dare in the first place.

He would remember taking the ship into the battle's he'd had- with Nero, Marcus, against the Gorn, and the Breen, not to mention the Romulan commander and the Klingons, and the moments where reencountered so many bizarre moments, like the time a new breed of tribble appeared on the ship, one which went straight past the ship's support systems which had been designed with tribbles in mind_. _

_But _Kirk would also recall the time in his life when he had become so bored of Starfleet, felt his entire life had become so mundane and episodic since despite the fact he and his crew had gotten the five-year-mission he'd wanted, but as they'd moved into their third year, every day and every second seemed to have merged together.

It had been disheartening. He had wanted to see space, deep space as the captain of the _Enterprise _for a long time. He had wanted to push the boundaries of what the Federation knew. He had wanted to prove to the naysayers who had derided him for years behind his back since he took command in record time, saying he was too young, too inexperienced, too untried as a true captain in the fleet.

When he had been younger, Kirk had been infuriated by the remarks. His ego had taken a nasty battering but at the same time…he had to admit even to himself, they did have a point.

Most of everything he had learnt during his tenure as captain of the _Enterprise _and then later on as captain of the _Enterprise-A_ had been based on his own natural problem-solving talents and his skill at making things up as he went along, although it wasn't until after that mess with Khan where he'd had a true brush with death where he came face to face with his own mortality, his life had come into focus and made him buckle down.

Although he still had his youthful, boyish attitude, it was more tempered. And as the years had passed, Kirk had to admit he had matured very well, and for that he was grateful.

But that year….

Kirk still wasn't certain when life on the ship had become so tedious. In the first two years of the five-year-mission, the days were anything but dull, although there were moments, but since the galaxy was still reeling from the destruction of Vulcan, and the year later the whole mess with Khan Noonien Singh and Admiral Marcus' conspiracy and there were thousands of shockwaves from both incidents.

Between dealing with both the Romulans and the Klingons, and that mess with the Doomsday Machine which had shattered dozens of solar systems, the first two years of the five-year-mission hadn't been dull.

But the third…

Kirk was not sure if it was because the _Enterprise _had been travelling further into deep space, but everything on the ship had slowed down to a crawl.

He knew that his relationship with Carol Marcus had died down.

She had wanted to have a life, and she had wanted to be with him. The feeling had been mutual since she was the first woman he had not only been truly in love with, but there was something about her that magnetised him to her in the same manner as strawberries and cream.

Only for their relationship to fizzle out.

And he blamed the _Enterprise _for that.

They had few new adventures, and as the captain of the flagship, he had to deal with the tediousness of diplomacy, dealing with one irritating group after another. In the end, he had become so tired of it all, he had applied for the position of the Vice-Admiral position on _Yorktown. _He had just grown so tired and fed up with everything, he had been prepared to sit behind a desk.

He wanted to make it up to Carol after one of their stupid arguments.

He wanted to prove to her he could live without standing on the bridge of a starship.

Only to be snapped back into reality when he had lost the _Enterprise. _His first true love although Carol was there.

The senseless loss of his ship, and the deaths of many of his crew at the hands of Krall, later discovered to be one of the first Starfleet captains, had shaken Kirk to his core. For the first time ever, there was more meaning to his life.

But Krall - Edison - had taught Kirk that he didn't know who he was especially after Krall had listened to his log entries, but since Krall had once been a man, a human being, who had fought on the frontlines during both the Romulan and Xindi wars, watching hundreds of people getting slaughtered, only to be given a pat on the head and given a position with an organisation he both resented and hated, Kirk felt it was pretty amazing Krall had the gall to tell him (Kirk) he didn't know who he was.

Krall had been insane.

He had been driven to anger and despair by the loss of all but two other members of his crew. He had learnt to live for years past the average human lifespan by draining off the energy of the people unfortunate enough to cross his path, not realising the Federation had been searching for traces of the _Franklin _for years, and the history of the ship was a standard course at the Academy.

But he had let his rage turn him into a monster.

Kirk had wondered….if he'd suffered a terrible accident like Krall had, lost his crew in a similar way, and only had a few survivors with him, would he have done the same thing if he had found similar resources? Would he have been driven insane by the loss of his ship and the rest of his crew, finding himself alone in an unknown part of the galaxy?

No.

Krall had given up. He had the opportunity a hundred times over to find a way to escape Altamid, to use the robotic workforce there to construct a more durable ship or to repair the _Franklin. _

Kirk would never have done that. If he'd had similar resources, he wouldn't have gone down the same path Edison had. He wouldn't have rested until he had a way of making something better of his situation, no matter how dire.

Still, when he'd returned to _Yorktown _and turned down the Vice-Admiral position, Kirk hadn't felt any regrets. In fact, he had felt like himself again. He had realised he had wanted to leave the _Enterprise _because he had been so hurt after Carol had left him, and his life had been meaningless before that horrible time. But now he had his focus back, he planned to find a way of getting back together with Carol, making it up to her and hopefully becoming something more with her.

The star-base had a single Constitution-class ship under construction. Starfleet gave permission to name her _Enterprise-A. _

But Kirk didn't fall in love with the ship instantly. He needed a lot of time to get used to the fact he had another Constitution-class starship in his charge once more. He wished Starfleet had the common decency to give him a different class of ship, instead of a Constitution-class because it felt as if the ship he had fallen in love with had been replaced by her near-identical twin.

But he had taken her out on good faith, and it had paid off. The new ship performed amazingly, and she served him well just as the original _Enterprise _did. And when he and Carol got married and started to raise a small family of little Kirks, he had been thankful that he had the _Enterprise-A. _

For years he commanded the _Enterprise-A. _She had served him well during the V'ger incident, the recovery of George and Gracie from the 20th century when the Cetacean probe threatened Earth in the 23rd, and when Praxis was destroyed and the Klingon Empire, she had fought valiantly against Chang's bird-of-prey. Only for her to be decommissioned and replaced, but when James T. Kirk finally retired, he had on his walls two paintings of Constitution-class starships, one clearly showing the _Enterprise _he had seen in Riverside and the _Enterprise-A. _

James T. Kirk had fallen in love three times in his life.

The _Enterprise _had been the first, but she had introduced him to Carol, only to take her away from him. And the _Enterprise-A _had given her back to him.


End file.
